Female royal figure

Date19th century

Attributed to Fon Yu 1865-1912

Label TextImposing as this royal figure is, she is more severely stoic than she originally appeared in the late 1980's. Now spare and roughly hewn, this woman's image once supported a body casing of solid, shimmering cut-glass beads. A residual collar and a copper overlay on her hands and face attest to her former ornamentation. In a gesture of salutation, she clasps her right hand over her left, in deference to the fon or to present him with kola nuts. She may represent the queen mother (nwifoyn) who presides beside her son and is in charge of the domestic relations of the palace. This figure was carved sometime in the last century, either during the reign of Fon Yuh (1865-1912) or his great-grandfather Fon Nkwain (ca. 1825.) The current Fon (King) of Kom still lives in a palace in Laikom, high in the peaks of the Grasslands of Cameroon. He sent his grandson, Gilbert Lo-oh Mbeng, to Seattle to speak about this royal figure, in 2001: "This palace woman has a special shaved hairstyle, rubbed with camwood. Camwood is a reddish makeup for Kom women and it is supposed to represent peace and fertility. She is a newly married woman, a wife to the Fon, and she has her hands crossed to show respect for the Fon."

Just over one hundred years ago, this royal figure was closely guarded in a palace sanctuary high on a mountaintop in Cameroon. There she was shown only in rare public spectacles, when her gestures and appearance emphasized court etiquette for thousands of Kom people. Removed from this home in 1905, she became an ambassador for her kingdom and was transferred through collections in Europe and America. In the Seattle Art Museum, she is the most significant sculpture in an assembly that originally came from the Kom royal treasury. Today the current leader of the Kom, Fon (king) Yibain, continues to preside from a palace environment that is adapting to the twenty-first century. His approval to display art from his kingdom has led to exchanges and a recent update about the opening of new galleries for Kom art.

Object number81.17.718

Provenance[Charles Ratton, Paris, France]; purchased from gallery by Katherine White (1929-1980), Seattle, Washington, 1966; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1981

Photo CreditPhoto: Paul Macapia

Henry VIII would have been envious.

Paul Gebauer, 1979, Art of Cameroon: Portland Art Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibition HistoryCleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Museum of Art, African Tribal Images: The Katherine White Reswick Collection, July 10 - Sept. 1, 1968 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Oct. 10 - Dec. 1, 1968). Text by William Fagg. Cat. no. 179 (as Female Figure with Stool). Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, African Sculpture, Jan. 29 - Mar. 1, 1970 (Kansas City, Missouri, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Mar. 21 - Apr. 26, 1970; Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Museum, May 26 - June 21, 1970). Los Angeles, California, Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, African Art in Motion: Icon and Act, Jan. 20 - Mar. 17, 1974 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, May 5 - Sept. 22, 1974). Text by Robert Farris Thompson. No cat. no., pp. 54-55, reproduced pl. 61 (as throne figure). Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Praise Poems: The Katherine White Collection, July 29 - Sept. 29, 1984 (Washington, D.C., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Oct. 31, 1984 - Feb. 25, 1985; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Apr. 6 - May 19, 1985; Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Sept. 7 - Nov. 25, 1985; Kansas City, Missouri, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mar. 8 - Apr. 20, 1986). Text by Pamela McClusky. Cat. no. 29, pp. 66-67, reproduced (as Throne of a queen). Madison, Wisconsin, Artwork for the Month, Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Nov. 1 - Nov. 30, 1986 . Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Table and Chair: A Study in Form and Style, May 28 - Aug. 9, 1987. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, African Panoplies: Art for Rulers, Traders, Hunters, and Priests, Apr. 21 - Aug. 14, 1988. New York, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Africa: The Art of A Continent, June 5, 1996 - Sept. 29, 1996. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back, Feb. 7 - May 19, 2002 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Oct. 2, 2004 - Jan. 2, 2005; Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, Feb. 12 - June 19, 2005; Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Art Museum, Oct. 8, 2005 - Jan. 1, 2006; Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Jan. 27 - Apr. 30, 2006 [as African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back]). Text by Pamela McClusky. No cat. no., pp. 117-22, reproduced pl. 67 (as Memorial figure of queen mother) and fig. 29. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Lessons from the Institute of Empathy, Mar. 31, 2018 - ongoing.Published ReferencesLaGamma, Alisa, Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2011, Fig. 130 , pg. 143 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Africa: The Art of a Continent, Curated by Tom Phillips, October 4, 1995 - September 29, 1996, pg.154. Phillips, Tom, Africa: The Art of a Continent, in African Arts, Vol. 29, No. 3, Special Issue: africa95 (Summer 1996), pp. 24-35, illus. p. 35 Blier, Suzanne Preston, Review: The Art of Cameroon, in Art Journal, Vol. 44, No. 2, Summer 1984, p. 167, fig. 1 Nothern, Tamara. The Art of Cameroon. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1984; p. 98, reproduced fig. 21. Leuzinger, Elsy, Die Kunst von Schwarz-Afrika, Kunsthalle, Zurich, 1970. p. 4. Fagg, William. African Sculpture: [Loan Exhibition] Circulated by the International Exhibitions Foundation, 1970. Washington, D.C.: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1970; p. 67, reproduced fig. 64. Leuzinger, Elsy. Africa: The Art of the Negro Peoples, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, Toronto, London. p. 145.

Credit LineGift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company

DimensionsOverall: 69 in. (175.3cm) Width: 17 in. (43.2cm) Depth: 21 in. (53.3cm)

MediumWood, beads, string, leather, hair, metal, hide, incrustations, and polychrome